Read Online In Search of Love and Beauty by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - Free Book Online Page B

underneath. Regi herself had given up on her hair and wore a tall red wig; her brand-new dress was silk and of electric blue, and her jewelry was bigger and more fantastic than ever.
    â€œAnd now you’ve sent your granddaughter to him too. Even if she isn’t your granddaughter.” Regi had never given her approval to Natasha’s adoption.
    â€œShe’s working in the office,” Louise said. “There’s a lot of secretarial work.”
    â€œIn the first place,” Regi said, counting off on a skeletal forefinger, “she can’t do secretarial work.”
    â€œNatasha is very hardworking.” But Louise sounded neither convinced nor happy. She didn’t know why Natasha had gone to stay at the Academy; she wished she hadn’t. It was true, Natasha couldn’t do secretarial work; Leo would get angry and yell at her whenever she bungled something, which would be often.
    â€œIn the second place—” Regi said; she was ready with another finger to count off, but then she couldn’t remember what there was in second place. Her eyes began to rove around the restaurant again; when she caught a curious glance at herself, she put on the contemptuous expression with which she had always warded off a pass. “Such awful types come here now,” she said. “I wouldn’t be seen out dead with any of them. And the waiters are just useless, no good.” She clawed at a passing one, pointed at her empty cup: “If you’re not too busy, thank you, and can spare a little time for me. I’m going to the theater tonight,” she told Louise. “A musical, you know how I love them. Jerry is taking me—you remember Jerry?”
    â€œYes,” Louise lied. Regi always had some young manaround whom she paid as little as she could get away with, so they changed frequently.
    â€œYou do? How can you? I only met him last week . . . Oh, I suppose you’re mixing him up with Chuck. Well, Mr. Chuck had his good-bye and good riddance, we’ve seen quite enough of that one, thank you very much. . . . Oh, by the way, he said he knew your Mark.”
    â€œWhy not? Mark knows a lot of people.”
    â€œI wouldn’t like him to know someone like Chuck; not if he were my grandson. . . . I have such a pain here, Louise, it shoots right up my thigh.”
    â€œPain,” Louise said. “Who doesn’t have pain.”
    â€œI have my checkup regularly,” Regi said with a proud sway of her wig. But next moment she looked at Louise with eyes which were quite appealing and humble: “It couldn’t be anything bad because Dr. Hirschfeld gave me an absolutely clean bill. He said I was remarkable . . . But it keeps coming back.” She put out her hand to a waiter again, but he escaped her nimbly, swaying sideways with his tray. “You don’t know how lucky you are, Louise. All you have is toothache.”
    â€œAnd heartache,” Louise said—as a joke, trying to cheer her up.
    But Regi took her seriously: “Well, now listen, the time for that sort of thing is really finished. There’s a lot of it going on in Florida, but I keep myself absolutely away from it. And if you hear people talk about me with Jerry or anyone, you can take it from me, there’s nothing of that sort. He’s just a nice boy who helps me out sometimes. I might get him to take me to Dr. Hirschfeld again tomorrow, if this doesn’t get better. . . . Oh, God, you’re looking over there again. I can’t stand it.”
    Louise took her eyes away from Leo’s table and murmured, “There’s such a nice couple sitting there, do you think they’re husband and wife?”
    â€œHusband and wife. Whoever is husband and wife nowadays . . .I’ll tell you something, Louise: I’m tired. I’m tired of it all.”
    â€œSo am I,” said Louise, but in such a different tone that Regi had to put her right at once: